Ilkhom Soliev

Ilkhom Soliev is a Junior Professor and Head of the Department of Environmental Sociology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, where he also serves as Director of the Social Learning & Environmental Governance (SLEG) Lab and as a Directorial Board Member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Regional Studies (ZIRS). He is a Full member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and serves as an Earth System Governance Research Fellow.

His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Institutional Economics from Technische Universität Berlin (2012-2016), an M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and Policy from the University of Manchester (2008-2009), and dual degrees in Economics from the Tashkent Institute of Architecture and Construction (Bachelor's 2002-2006, Master's 2006-2008). He also holds a Certificate on didactics in higher education from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (2021-2022).

Dr. Soliev's research focuses on environmental social sciences, resource governance, and institutional economics, with particular emphasis on path dependence and transformations toward equitability and sustainability. His work examines societal transformations across natural resource domains including biodiversity, climate, water, land, and forests. He employs institutional-discourse analysis, experimental surveys, and experiential behavioral games to study change in values, behavior, and norms in relation to nature, biodiversity, climate, forests, transboundary waters, and groundwater.

His recent publications demonstrate a strong trajectory in rights of nature research, benefit-sharing mechanisms, transboundary water governance, and transformative change frameworks. These works consistently bridge theoretical insights with practical applications for sustainable governance, showing particular strength in interdisciplinary approaches that connect social sciences with environmental policy.

Dr. Soliev serves as scientific co-lead for the Horizon Europe Project DAISY and leads the Horizon Europe Project PLANET4B and iDiv Flexpool Project PrioDiv. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Behavior, Institutions and the Environment at Arizona State University and contributes as a Policy and governance expert at the OSCE.

He directs the SLEG Lab, which focuses on social learning approaches for environmental governance, and is a founding member of the Interdisciplinary Network on the Study of the Rights of Nature. His work with the International Association for the Study of the Commons and as a Regional Coordination Team member for Europe and CIS demonstrates his commitment to advancing commons-based governance solutions globally.